A tale of two harbors

The Travel Wisconsin fall color website said Door County was already a bit past peak when my wife and I took a weekend mini-vacation up there a couple weeks ago. In years past, we’d gone earlier and made only day-trips, so it was no bother. A longer, more leisurely, and less tourist-packed time in Wisconsin’s Cutest County would be worth the cost in fewer bright golds and reds.

Door County may occasionally suffer from a sense of being manufactured to draw in visitors, but it will always have a defender in me, and it earned that loyalty even before I had beer reasons to love it.

I’ve almost exclusively visited the bay side of Door County, which consists of the communities of Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Ephraim, and Sister Bay. I would like to give Sister Bay some props here, because while it doesn’t have a brewery to call its own (yet), it does have the estimable little beer cafe Bier Zot, from the owners of the adjacent and wildly popular Wild Tomato pizza restaurant. (The original location is in Fish Creek.)

The first beverage I consumed in Door County this year was, naturally, a cherry mead from Ohio’s Crafted Artisan Meads called Stranger Bings. It was the weekend before Halloween, so it felt apt. Before our evening at Bier Zot was done, we would also sample a German Zwickel, a British barleywine, and a Belgian quad. The small food menu was equally eclectic and fun; I recommend the fried cauliflower and pork belly ramen.

Down the road in Egg Harbor, there was a stop I’d been wanting to make for months. Over a year ago, the 20-year old Shipwrecked brewpub was destroyed by a massive fire. The owners doggedly pursued a rebuilding plan that came to fruition in only ten months, and I was eager to see what the new building looked like.

So of course, when we got there, it was all dressed up for Halloween as the Krusty Krab. Our server, expertly deploying extra hospital pants stuffed with water noodles for a Squidward costume, delivered a flight of Shipwrecked beers on a little wooden oar. The blonde was pretty standard, but the Captain’s Copper was clean and mild, a beer-flavored beer if you’re a Jim Gaffigan palate.

The porter had a light but roasty body, and both the Oktoberfest and the pumpkin ale had a spicy quality. Door County Cherry Wheat demonstrated admirable restraint in not over-cherrying a decent wheat base. Shipwrecked is a brewery hewing to an older American style — no trend-chasing wackadoo beers, just straightforward classic styles. The added value of Shipwrecked is the massive new building, built out to be an Egg Harbor centerpiece for years to come.

There’s still a little bit of the usual Door County vibe in Baileys Harbor (no apostrophe), but humming underneath the dominant note of white fences and fish boil restaurants is a bass note of what I can only describe as less shabby chic and more of a hipster bent. I admit I may have been primed to see this by virtue of passing signs for a juice bar and a ukulele shop on the way down from Sister Bay, but the Door County Brewing Co./Hacienda Beer Co. taproom and neighboring Bearded Heart coffeeshop? Pure hipster vibe.

I don’t want this to come off as a knock, because while I may not have the lumberjack’s facial hair, I’m as much of a hazy-chasing, adjunct-savoring beerdo as anyone who looks even more the part. And the Hacienda tap lineup, it definitely speaks to me. We enjoyed a peach milkshake IPA called Whatever Feels Right, and the more traditional New England IPA Closer Everywhere, which was even hazier. Door County’s Point Break was a rare breed, the true West Coast IPA, and it was excellent.

On the adjunct stout side, Vertigogo was a knockout fresh from the tap — a smooth milk stout with prominent additions of coffee and cinnamon. We were seduced by a gorgeous Palla-style swing-top growler in the merch shop and brought it home brimming with Vertigogo..and found the cinnamon had faded to almost nonexistent levels. Still good, but diminished slightly nonetheless. Madison just saw a fresh Hacienda drop last week, and Vertigogo cans were among them. If you find one or already bought some, drink it soon, before it goes past peak.